Career
He was heavily involved in paper manufacture, founding his own company of David Chalmers & Company, and by the late 19th century was the sole owner of Cowan & Company Paperworks. Consequently he was educated at that school, and then at Edinburgh University. In 1860 he is shown as owning the paper-mill of Katesmill in Colinton, Edinburgh.
He lived adjacent, in Kate"s Mill House.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1866. In later life he lived in Redhall House in south-west Edinburgh, where he also ran a papermill.
He died on 2 May 1899.
